Ninefox Gambit
Captain Kel Cheris of the hexarchate is disgraced for using unconventional methods in a battle against heretics. Kel Command gives her the opportunity to redeem herself by retaking the Fortress of Scattered Needles, a star fortress that has recently been captured by heretics. Cheris's career isn't the only thing at stake. If the fortress falls, the hexarchate itself might be next. Cheris's best hope is to ally with the undead tactician Shuos Jedao. The good news is that Jedao has never lost a battle, and he may be the only one who can figure out how to successfully besiege the fortress. The bad news is that Jedao went mad in his first life and massacred two armies, one of them his own. As the siege wears on, Cheris must decide how far she can trust Jedao--because she might be his next victim.
Stats for nerds
10recommend
15mentions
13people
2017–2026years
80% recommend20% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I haven't yet read the last few ones because I found the Aztec ones underwhelming. The Calculating Stars to A Desolation Called Peace was when I started feeling they were not so strong and decided I'd go read prior years instead. But I suppose the vagaries of 'winner' vs. shortlist probably take this. It is true that all those others you're talking about are much stronger. I do think that The Ninefox Gambit, The Fifth Season, The Three Body Problem are all just as strong as the ones you've mentioned.
Having read Network Effect and compared it to Piranesi, the two seem simply leagues apart. Perhaps the real thing here is that I'm over-indexing on taste instead of some object measure of quality. Piranesi was otherworldly in the way of Strange and Norrell but Network Effect was Yet Another Story in comparison.
And it's true what you say. Some of the past winners were also relatively weak. Downbelow Station seemed incomplete though I think Neuromancer was unbelievable.
It's just that when I went back and just picked old winners to read it felt like banger after banger after banger. The one where I only remember Kallikantzaros or Lord of Light or Dune or The Left Hand of Darkness. Ringworld I could see people being put off by, but it had this whole thing with the ringworld and the trifold symmetry thing and all that.
Then again, everything that comes now has to avoid everything that came prior, sort of O(n) problem. You can't be new when much has been written.
- I don't think any of Blackout/All Clear, Ancillary Justice, Three-Body Problem, A Memory Called Empire or A Desolation Called Peace live up to Hugo standards (and I didn't read The Calculating Stars because I didn't think The Lady Astronaut of Mars did either). Looking at the post-2009 shortlists I think at least Anathem, Ninefox Gambit (and, frankly, both its sequels), The Goblin Emperor and Too Like the Lightning (even if the series ended poorly) were Hugo-winner-quality and The Dervish House was borderline (I appreciate that that that's two for 2015).
- Thanks, that's a very specific list.
I was personally not a fan of the Three Body Problem (apart from the vivid flashback to the Cultural Revolution) because of the language (not clear whether it suffered in translation or whether it was the writing style of the original), and because the physics of it seemed ludicrous to me. But it's one of those "grand idea" series that to me would clearly qualify as winner tier, and it had many fans from across the political spectrum and quite a bit of commercial success.
Blackout/All Clear has been criticized for being rather loose with historical and cultural details, and for splitting up what might have fit into a single novel into two books, but I thought it was an excellent book otherwise.
I thought both the Ancillary Justice trilogy and the A Memory Called Empire trilogy were amazing works. I disagreed with the hectoring pro-Human Spaceflight messaging of The Calculating Stars, but as a book, I again thought it was good.
I was a fan of Anathem, Ninefox Gambit, and The Goblin Emperor (which was my preference to win that year) as well; could not get into Too Like the Lightning at all (but had no doubt that it belonged).
- * Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee
* The Color of Distance by Amy Thomson
- I'll plug some excellent work that is underrepresented here:
CJ Cherryh's "Cyteen". Won the Hugo for best novel in '89. The backdrop is Cherryh's Alliance-Union universe -- which is arguably one of those classic "cold war in space" type space opera settings of science fiction of a certain vintage -- but that conflict isn't the focus of this novel. Cyteen is set in the research organisation that designs, grows and conditions the "azi" clone slave caste that generates population of labourers and specialists required to keep the Union society running. I found it initially slow going, but it turned out to be one of the best novels I've read in a long time. The plot is a kind of coming-of-age / political-intrigue / murder mystery tale. Not a space opera - power games, paranoia, abuse. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyteen
Yoon Ha Lee's "Ninefox Gambit" (first of a trilogy, each book in the trilogy shortlisted for Hugo best novel 2017/2018/2019). Space opera / military sci-fi. The political stability of the empire depends upon adherence to the empire's standard 'calendar', which is maintained through ritual torture of heretics. Much exotic technology depends upon calendric properties, and fails in regions where populations are following a nonstandard heretical calendar. The outcomes of battles depend not only on how many fleets or waves of infantry can be expended, but each side's mathematical ability to understand the local calendrical properties and adapt their tactics and technology accordingly. The plot follows a military officer's mission to quash a rebellion at a key star fortress -- and her attempt to improve the chances of success by having the mind of a dead undefeated war-criminal general loaded into her head. Space opera / military sci-fi.
Arkady Martine's "A Memory Called Empire" (won Hugo best novel in 2020). A tiny independent station sends a replacement diplomat into the heart of a neighboring empire, in an attempt to direct the empire's attention elsewhere and maintain independent station sovereignty, and discover what happened to the previous diplomat. Backdrop is suitable for a space opera, the story is political intrigue. The station society is one where memories and personalities can be artificially recorded and stored, and then re-implanted into future generations to preserve skills and knowledge. The novel explores attraction and intoxication with the culture and language of a dominant foreign power that is threatening to engulf one's own home.
- You might like the Machineries of Empire series instead- fascinating world building with serious depth of character and personal stakes. First book is Ninefox Gambit.
